Dangerous Tendencies
by Darkenning
Summary: "All that matters is what you choose. Well? What do you choose?" A series of tales set in the worlds of Nanoha. Note rating. Note pairings. Note author.
1. Chapter 1

_Standard issue disclaimer: Masaki Tsuzuki created, and Seven Arcs owns, Nanoha. I am not any of them. This is a parody, protected speech._

_This story is dedicated to Manabe Jouji, author of _Working Official Disqualification_, to which this is a spiritual sequel. But I'm not him either. _

**Dangerous Tendencies **  
><strong>Chapter 1 - Lindy<strong>

_0074 NC_

"Senior Admiral," Lindy Harlaown said, drawing out the word in the way used by a villain in a fantasy movie she'd watched with her children once. "Senior, yet." She slumped on the couch, staring gloomily at the table covered in bottles. They'd racked up quite a tab for this karaoke booth, and not even used it for its primary purpose yet.

"We're not all bad, you know," Leti Lowran reminded her with just a touch of asperity.

"I didn't say that. Fate-chan, you were listening, right?" the mildly inebriated officer asked her adopted daughter, who was seated a bit further down the couch from the two superior officers with her mother's feet up in her lap. The tall blonde was gently massaging one of them. "Did I even once say that all Senior Admirals are tin-plated dictators with petty delusions of godhood?"

"No, ma'am, you never said that," Fate confirmed obediently. "At least, not until just now." Obedient, but truthful.

"Tha' was just an example of the sorts of things that someone said I said," Lindy observed with grave deportment.

"I never said that you said that," Leti objected. "What I said was ... oh, never mind." She brushed her purple hair out of her eyes and chuckled faintly.

"Now she's laughing at me. You can't laugh at Senior Admirals, y'know. They take horrible vengeance," Lindy confided.

"I've never noticed any of the Senior Admirals you've laughed at taking any sort of vengeance," Leti replied dubiously. "Unless of course you consider gradually arranging matters so that you end up as one yourself to be a form of vengeance."

"Bloody well do." Lindy snorted. "Me. A Senior Admiral. Actually that's kinda funny, but not in a ha-ha way. I can't believe they're gonna make me drive a desk. A desk, Leti. How'm I supposed to protect the peace of the worlds from a desk?"

"Some people manage," Leti pointed out, then gently intercepted the drink that Lindy was raising to her lips. "You've had enough for a while. Oh, come on, Lindy," she said as her old friend began to pout. "You can't do the sort of work you do, get the sort of results you have, and not end up being kicked upstairs. You've made yourself too valuable to be out in the field taking those sorts of risks. It's a compliment!"

"Don't need this kind of compliment," Lindy said, still pouting. Then, with the mercurial change of moods that was quite common in certain lushes, she was beaming. "Much rather be told that I'm sexy. You think I'm sexy, right, Leti-Leti?"

"Oookay, if we've reached _that_ stage of the evening, I think it's time for me to make my discrete exit," Leti said, getting up before Lindy could get grabby. "Make sure Admiral Latent Bisexuality here gets home safely, all right, Fate?"

"Of course," Fate nodded, resisting the impulse to call her Admiral Mostly Lesbian.

With a last wave, Leti went out the booth door.

"Leti's gone," Lindy announced gloomily a moment later.

"Yes, I know," Fate confirmed as she switched to massaging the other foot.

"Never used to run out on me like that. Atchally, the two of us were just like you and Nanoha-chan when we met, and Clyde kept getting in the middle of us like Chrono got in the middle of you two," she mused. "But we had the worst fights over him, which is different from you, I guess. The make-up sex was great, though ... ah man, that was more'n twenty-five years ago. Where the hell does time go? I'm in the frigging Time-Space Administration Bureau and I don't know this?"

She sighed and leaned further back on the couch. "You are very good at this," she complimented her masseuse. "Lots of practice on Nanoha-chan, right?"

"Actually, she taught me," Fate replied.

"Yeah, that figures. Damn ninjas."

"I need to talk to you seriously," Fate said suddenly.

Lindy grimaced. "Crap. Really? It can't wait?"

Fate shook her head.

"All right, where's the bloody sober-up pills?"

"In my coat pocket. I'll get them." Fate lifted Lindy's feet out of her lap and set them down on the couch before getting up to walk over to the coat rack beside the door. She took the bottle of pills out of the pocket before clicking the lock mechanism on the door and putting up its 'Do Not Disturb' sign. She then returned to the couch and handed Lindy the bottle.

Lindy opened the bottle top easily, shook two pills out, and slapped them to her mouth so as to avoid giving herself time to hesitate. Two minutes later, she let out a hiss of intense pain. "Sankt Kaiser!" she expostulated as her hangover hit her at once. The worst part had to be that she couldn't even take a hair of the dog, since she'd end up vomiting any additional alcohol introduced into her system.

"Are you okay?" Fate asked nervously.

"Yeah, yeah," Lindy said wearily. "The day they learn how to package this med with an instant hang-over relief is going to be a great one, though." She gagged a bit. "Not to mention doing something about the aftertaste ... all right. Magical Girl Serious Lindy is here. What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," Fate said, sitting down next to her. "I just needed to talk to you, and this was the best opportunity."

"Needed to talk about what? Oh, no, don't tell me - you've found a _third_ kid you want me to adopt for you? Fate, you're starting to go a little over-"

"No, it's not that." Fate drew in a deep breath. "Do you remember what happened after you offered to adopt me? Maybe a week or so later?"

"Yes, I remember. I'm not likely to forget." She reflected ...

* * *

><p><em>It has been a long day for the master and commander of the <em>Arthra_; not a day composed of moments of utter terror as have been distressingly common recently, but one of the unending tedium that is its supposedly preferable alternative. Despite everything, she is glad that nothing is happening, for unlike some of her colleagues, she sincerely believes in her Bureau's mission of making the worlds safe, rather than viewing that mission as an excuse to fight (or perhaps befriend) strong adversaries, or as a path to power._

_And so, in the privacy of her suite, as she strips off her uniform, neatly folding it and hanging it in the closet, she utters a brief prayer to the Saint King that this period of boring tranquility will continue, and not just because she genuinely requires these six hours of rest and recuperation. Naked, Lindy slips beneath the covers of her bunk, rolls onto her side, and closes her eyes._

_They open again a moment later when she realizes that there is another warm body in her bunk with her._

_Her eyes by now have adjusted to the darkness, and she can see the shock of yellow-colored hair peeking out above the covers, squashed up against the corner of the room into which the bunk is fitted. It's unmistakable. No one else on board her ship has hair like that._

_"Fate?" she asks quietly. "How did you get in here?"_

_"... you don't change the access code frequently enough," comes the equally softly-voiced answer, though the girl's eyes, facing away from her, have not turned towards her. They may in fact still be closed. It's hard to tell._

_"I see. I'll have to do better. Fate, why did you come in here?"_

_"In case you wanted me here."_

_A dreadful suspicion fills her soul, but she refuses, absolutely refuses, to allow it any purchase in her voice. "And why would I want you here?" she asks._

_"Just ... in case."_

_"Would it be because I've told you that I want to become your mother? And this is the sort of thing you did for -" _That woman_, she almost says, but stops herself in time, because Fate does not need more wounds, and if she says it the way that she very much wants to say it, she will deal them. So insead, she continues, every bit as gently. "- your first mother?"_

_Silence, and a faint, possibly imagined tilt of Fate's head, are the only answers she receives._

_She had her suspicions. When Fate collapsed on the Arthra's bridge, months ago, a full medical examination was performed, and certain disturbing facts about her were noted. But there were probably many ways that a girl, physically ten years old, might have a broken hymen. Indeed, considering her origins, it was even likely that growing an intact hymen might not have been part of the cloning process._

_But now those suspicions are confirmed. And it is a good thing, she muses, a very good thing, that Precia Testarossa is either dead in a horrible manner or lost beyond all hope of recall, rather than captured and imprisoned. Because if she had access to her, there is no doubt in her mind what Lindy would do to her. It is a very good thing she cannot ... because the tenets of Lindy's faith teach that when one must kill, one must do so without passion of any sort, especially hatred. And she would not be able to do so._

_She does not think of herself as a good mother. A good mother would not stand idly by while her child follows her into the career that killed his father and will likely kill his mother as well. A good mother would not do many things that she has done, in fact. But she is determined that for this child, she will be a better mother than she has been._

_"I see," Lindy says, when she has mastered her passions for the moment. Then, "Fate, I would really appreciate it if you would look at me when I'm talking with you. It makes me a little uncomfortable when you don't."_

_Predictably, the implied guilt immediately prompts Fate to roll over so that she's looking at Lindy, and, on seeing that the older woman is seated in an upright position, she likewise rises to sit in the position dubbed seiza. It is a position of submission, Lindy knows, one that allows the head to drop quickly, as though awaiting a strike._

_There will be no strike. She takes a deep breath, and rests a hand on her breasts. "This, all of it, is mine. I share it with whom I choose to share it. No one, with whom I do not choose to share it, has any right at all to even touch it. Any one who does so has committed a violation of my person, and should expect to receive a violation of their own."_

_Before Fate can respond to that, Lindy takes the hand on her own breasts, and holds it just over Fate's much smaller ones - carefully not touching them. "This, all of it, is yours. You share it with whom you choose to share it. No one, with whom you do not choose to share it, has any right at all to even touch it. Any one who does so has committeda violation of your person, and should expect to receieve a violation of their own."_

_After a moment to let the message sink in, she draws the hand back and rests it with the other on her lap. "I will not share any part of my person with you unless you choose to share yours with me. Do you want this? And before you answer, forget any arguments you might have about duty, about obligation, or even about wanting to make me feel good. Forget all that. All that matters is what you choose. Well? What do you choose?"_

_Fate stared at her for several minutes, before she was finally able to stammer out, "I, I don't, I d-don't, I don't know ..."_

_Lindy nodded. As she'd hoped. "Okay. Then that means that for right now, the answer is no. And that's all right. Now. You can stay here, in my bed, but there's no touching of anything below the waistline or above the knee. And I suspect that Arf is probably a bit frightened without you."_

_Without saying a word, Fate pointed downwards._

_The gesture confused Lindy. Again, she developed a sudden suspicion. She coughed, said, "Please excuse me for one moment," and bent over to look beneath the bunk._

_Arf was down there, teeth very much in evidence, meeting her gaze levelly and without a word spoken. The message was clear without them._

_Lindy nodded, and unbended to sit on the bed again. "Let me revise my earlier statement. No touching of anything below the neck or above the knee ... at least on my part. Are these acceptable terms?"_

_Fate nodded quickly._

_"All right. Good night then."_

_And so they slept. Eventually. And Lindy felt good about what she'd done. Perhaps this gesture of principle would serve as a mild expiation for what she'd done with ... all right, _to_ Chrono when he'd finally earned his rank as Enforcer._

* * *

><p>"I know about Chrono," Fate said quietly, drawing Lindy out of her revery.<p>

"It's good to know that you've become close enough with your brother that he'll share things like that with you," Lindy said, just a bit mechanically, closing her eyes as she did so. "Are you going to call me on my hypocrisy, then?"

"What? No. I don't think you were a hypocrite," Fate replied, a bit thrown off.

"Fate, I had sex with my son. There's no getting around that. I violated the principles I described to you, I had violated them even before -"

"No," Fate said simply.

"How can you say that?" Lindy demanded.

"It's very easy. Only three syllables. Lindy. Mother. Chrono is a trained combat mage. If he really didn't want you to do things to his person, he had options. Unwanted touching will be answered with violence to the person who is touching, remember?"

"But I'm his mother," Lindy objected.

"So? Mother, there have been several times in my life when I've been angry enough with you to hurt you if you tried to touch me. The whole point of using magic, instead of mass-based weaponry, is that it's a lot harder to kill each other that way. Chrono understands this perfectly well, whatever he might say when he's crying."

"He was crying? Why was he ... Oh. He was crying a little afterwards," Lindy said softly, with realization. "Fate, did you -?"

Fate nodded. "It was five years ago. I was ... I was still coming to terms with who I was, sexually."

Lindy knew about that period, having once walked in on her daughter in flagrante delecto with Arf around that time.

"And he was having second thoughts about his engagement with Amy, and ... well, things happened. And he cried afterwards, and told me about it, and ... well, I set him straight, like I'm trying to do for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I've finally decided how I want to answer that question you asked me, that night. And the answer is yes." Fate reached out a hand and rested it on Lindy's knee. "I do choose to share my person with you, if you will share yours with me. Will you, Lindy?"

For a moment, all Lindy could do was stare. When speech returned, she said, "But I'm your mother."

Fate raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, that was a really weak argument under the circumstances, wasn't it?" Lindy said, rubbing her forehead. "Fate, what about Nano-"

"Nanoha does _not_ own me. I do," Fate interrupted. "For the record, she knows what I am doing, and approves. That's the sort of relationship we have. That's the sort of relationship that you helped us to have."

She hadn't thought it was possible for her to be more uncomfortable, but here she was all the same. "You did it with your own hands, I didn't -"

"None of that matters. Forget all the arguments about why you shouldn't do it, Lindy. The only thing that matters is what you choose to do. Well? What do you choose?"

"Is Arf under the couch?" Lindy asked hoarsely.

"No, she's watching Caro," Fate answered.

Lindy drew in a deep breath. She suspected that she was making a horrible mistake. But if it came down to a choice ...

"Yes," she said.

And with a joyful sigh, Fate leaned forward and rested her lips on Lindy's own, at first gently and then with increasing urgency. Lindy's uniform jacket had already been opened, exposing her tank top undershirt. Fate gently tugged its hem out of Lindy's skirt and slid her hand up under it to caress her mother's breasts through the wiring of her bra. Another hand slid around Lindy's back as Lindy's own arms wrapped around Fate's shoulders, pulling them ever closer together.

The hand spent a moment pulling the undershirt out, less gently than before, before moving up to just below her prominent shoulder blades (as expected of a woman who emitted wings from time to time) in order to find and open the hook of that bra. Unfortunately, this taxed Fate's abilities, and Lindy pulled back from the kiss to murmur, "It unhooks in the front, actually."

"Ah," said Fate, blushing faintly.

"I just got tired of reaching back there -"

"I understand." In an eyeblink, the fingers of her left hand were unhooking the clasp on Lindy's bra, as her other hand came back around to push the hemline of the shirt up and expose the breasts, and the well-chewed nipples they bore, to Fate's eyes. She stared at them for a moment, almost worshipful in her demeanor.

"Fate?" asked Lindy quietly.

"She never let me do this," Fate said, her eyes now far away. "She made me do ... all sorts of things to her, down there, and did things to me, but she wouldn't let me near her breasts. I think if she had, then she would have had to ... but that's not important, now. I love you so much, Mother." And with that confession, she bent down to begin suckling at Lindy's teats.

Lindy fell back, eyes closed and jaw open at the pleasurable sensations that seemed to run directly from her breasts to her brain. There hadn't been any of this with any of her recent lovers. She was torn between wanting to warn Fate that she should probably minimize this, if this tryst was meant solely for pleasure, and the yearning to experience more of it, even though she knew that if she experienced to much more of this, she would surely fall helplessly in love with her daughter.

Fate didn't stop, moving between the nipples and delivering butterfly kisses to the slopes of Lindy's breasts as well, not to mention the sensitive flesh of the valley between. At the same time, her hands were slowly lifting up Lindy's skirt, past her knees, past the tops of her thigh-hugging stockings, until the panties were clearly visible. She blindly reached out to touch the fabric, brushing it to caress what lay beneath it.

Lindy went rigid, let out a hollow gasp, then collapsed against the arm of the couch.

Fate lifted her head from the breasts to stare at her in amazement. "Did you just -"

"Yes," Lindy sighed.

"How long has it been since you last -"

"Months," she sighed again.

Fate stared at her, mouthed the word ... and reached out with both hands to rend the panties so that their fabric fell from Lindy's hips, then dove down between her legs to begin licking quickly yet forcefully.

Months? Who could go without for months? It was hard for her to go without for a week!

Several orgasms later, she looked up to see tears flowing freely from Lindy's eyes. She was almost tempted to point out that clearly Chrono wasn't the only one who wept after good sex, but instead just pushed herself up to kiss her mother on the mouth once more, before raining down kisses on her tears. "You're wonderful," she said.

"So are you," Lindy said weakly, tilting her head to turn one of those tear kisses into yet another kiss on the mouth. "My turn now?"

"There's no rush, we have this booth until midnight," Fate reminded her gently. "If you want to rest and -"

Lindy gently swatted Fate on the cheek. "I'm in the prime of life, you rotten kid," she said, strength coming back into her voice. She pushed herself up by her elbows, rolling up and onto Fate as she did. "Let me show you how we used to do things back in the day ..."

She did that, and Fate was more than happy to be shown.

Much later, they strolled out of the karaoke club, leaving the owner to wail at the sight of what he was going to have to clean up before it was ready for use, and into the cold night air. Of course, they walked arm in arm, like young lovers. Or not so young.

"So, I feel awful asking this. In any family but ours, the question would be moot, but ... about Erio and Caro ..." Lindy asked, trailing off.

"No, I'm not planning to seduce them. Not until they're at least fourteen, and can make up their own minds." That was the legal age of consent on Mid-Childa, a legacy of the years right after the Unification War. "Honestly, at the moment, I'm more concerned with talking Erio out of this idea he has of entering the Bureau as a cadet, and ... what's so funny?

"When you get to be my age, you'll understand. No regrets?"

"Plenty," Fate answered honestly. "About what we've done? Not a one. I love you and I always will."

Lindy leaned close and reached up to caress her adopted daughter's cheek. "Anyone else who said something like that, I'd think they were being ridiculously optimistic. You? You're just stating the facts, aren't you? I love you, too," she added before Fate could reply. "And here we are at my digs for the evening. Good night, my darling. Try and get your six, you don't want to start coming into work late at your age. Or you'll never get to be a Senior Admiral."

"Yes, mother," Fate said, in a sickeningly sweet voice.

**NEXT: Hayate.**


	2. Chapter 2

_Standard issue disclaimer: Masaki Tsuzuki created, and Seven Arcs owns, Nanoha. I am not any of them. This is a parody, protected speech._

_Fair warning - at least one reader whos been told what this chapter contains has told me that he was going to drop the story in response. He can do that. So can you. This is Hayate/Wolkenritters. _All_ of them. _

**Dangerous Tendencies**  
><strong>Chapter 2 - Hayate<strong>

_0074 NC_

It's not easy to manage a harem.

The above is a good example of a statement that will invite scorn from certain people. It's part of the same class of statements as, "I'm so beautiful it's a curse," or "I have so much money, I don't know what to do with it all," or "I can't eat another bite." When those who wish that they had such problems - or, to be accurate, wish they had the situations implied by those problems - hear those statements, they are wont to make cutting and sarcastic remarks.

Such people forget the adage, "The grass is always greener on the far side of the hill." Everything seems easy to those who are not involved in it.

Hayate Yagami (she had long since ceased to think of her name in Japanese order) was well aware of the fact that most people would not view her problems with harem management as problems. That was part of the reason that she never voiced a word of complaint about them where anyone else could hear, saving such ruminations for private moments like now, when she was alone in the bath. (The other part, of course, was that, name or no name, she was Japanese, and had learned from a young age not to draw attention to herself by complaining.)

It simply wouldn't do to assign each of her consorts a given day of the week on which they and they alone would have her romantic attention. After all, they were serving officers in the Bureau, and could conceivably be called away to deal with situations at a moment's notice. Given the duration of such situations, it would be easy fo days to go unfilled unless exchanged with someone else, opening up the question of the validity of such trades, and leading to potentially relationship-ending quarrels.

So instead of anything so formalized, the delicate balancing act of maintaining her polyamorous relationship with her sworn protectors rested entirely on her slender shoulders. She decided whose turn it was, and her decisions were final. The Wolkenritter accepted this with quiet confidence that their beloved mistress would never make a mistake. For the last four years, she'd proved worthy of their trust.

Well, almost four years. They were coming up on her birthday soon, and it had been on her fourteenth birthday that she had decided to take her relationship with her kids to the next level. It hadn't been casually done. She had quietly studied the laws of Mid-Childa, where she by then considered herself a citizen, and quietly and surreptitiously questioned Vita about previous masters. She'd suspected, and been right, that a few of them had used the power of the bond to force her knights to satisfy their lusts.

Hayate had not wanted to be one of those masters. She had no real model for what she wanted to be, but she knew that she could never force her loved ones to do anything. Manipulation was another story all together.

And so ...

* * *

><p><em>On her fourteenth birthday, after the cake and the presents, she sits among her loved ones with a content smile on her face. It is Shamal who gives her the opening that she needs, when the knight of the lakes asks, "So, was there anything you wanted but didn't get this year?"<em>

_Hayate, still smiling, simply says, "Yes."_

_Shamal looks a little startled. It's Vita who says, excitedly, "Well, you should have said so sooner! If there's something you want, there's still time, we can probably get it!"_

_"Ah, but it's something you can't buy in a store, Vita," she tells the tiny red-head. "And, actually, it's something I want to give to all of you, as well as getting."_

_Signum curves one of her delicate eyebrows. "Oh? What gift are you talking about?"_

_Hayate draws in a deep breath. "Myself," she says at last._

_Silence reigns for a moment, before Vita says, flatly, "I don't get the joke. How are we supposed to give you yourself?"_

_Before she can reply, Zafira raises his voice. She has come to know him as perhaps the wisest of her companions, the moreso because he so seldom says anything, simply watching, learning and waiting. For him to break his silence is to declare his words of importance. And once again, he does not disappoint. "Hayate ... are you saying that you want us to take you as a lover?" he asks._

_Vita turns to look sharply at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Zafira, that's not what she means!" Back to Hayate. "That's not what you mean, right, Hayate?" she asks, seeking reassurance. Yet does Hayate imagine that she sees a certain well-hidden hope in those eyes?_

_"That's what I mean," she says, and watches Vita's eyes go wide._

_"All of us?" the petite knight of the hammer squeaks a moment later._

_"All of you," Hayate repeats. "My knights ... no. My family, you are the only people in the world that I truly and utterly love." And this is true, for the day when she will see a tearful Nanoha and realize how much she loves her is still a year or more in the future. "I want to give myself to you, and I want you to give me acceptance of that gift. But. I realize that this must be your decision. I will be saddened if you choose not to do so, but I will not love you any less."_

_With that declaration, she stands up from where she was seated on the couch. The eyes of her knights, one and all, are upon her. "I will be waiting for you in my room," she says, and casually walks to the bedroom door. Within the room, she quickly and efficiently strips down to her chemise and panties before plopping herself down on the bed._

_She fights down an urge to smirk when Vita enters the room just a moment later. It's easy to do so; Vita looks terrified as she stands just inside the doorway. After a few false starts, the knight says, "They, they decided I should, should g-go first."_

_"I was hoping you would." Hayate says gently, holding out her hands._

_Vita still hasn't moved. "H-hayate," she stammers. "I, I don't, don't remember much, I don't want to remember, but ... but I remember that it hurts, the first time, and I don't ever ever **ever** want to hurt you and -" She is clearly panicking._

_Hayate immediately gets up and crosses the room to enfold Vita in her arms. "You won't," she whispers soothingly. "You won't ever ever ever hurt me, Vita-chan. Not unless you walk away from me."_

_Drawing strength from the touch, Vita hisses, "I won't do that, **ever**, but -"_

_"That's already done," she tells her. "Gym class, a few months ago." And then she leans down and presses her lips to Vita's, striving to communicate all the warmth and joy that the little knight has brought into her life with just this gesture. She can't, of course. But perhaps a little more practice will help._

_Cradling Vita against herself, she guides them both to the bed, never ceasing to kiss and stroke Vita's face until they collapse onto the sheets, and then pulling back only to pull the chemise off so that Vita's mouth can dash up towards her own small breast, licking and biting at her nipples like the baby she never was. She smiles with pleasure at the sensation, but doesn't let it distract her from the work of stripping her knight's clothes off as well._

_Eventually, the microskirt and the panties are down, and she leaves the thigh-high striped stockings alone as she pulls her chest away from Vita's lips. Smiling gently at the Vita's whine of displeasure, she kisses down the front of her t-shirt to her bellybutton, and then further down to look up at Vita's face from between her thighs. "I love you," she says, and lowers her mouth to Vita's core._

_Instant, immediate, energetic orgasm. Hayate isn't surprised at all by how piercing the screams coming from Vita's mouth are as she delicately licks, adding three fingered penetration to the technique eventually. Vita explodes in near continuous shrieks of passionate release._

_"Oh, you are so noisy," says a coolly amused voice from beside the bed. Signum has already let her skirt drop around her heels and is pulling her blouse off over her head as they look up at her. In a moment, she is on the bed kissing Hayate between Vita's knees and reaching down to undo the string on her master's panties. Hayate kisses Signum right back, their tongues rubbing against each other languidly, then pulls back to silently gesture towards Vita's lower lips._

_Signum shakes her head in a polite refusal. She didn't come here to make love to Vita, after all. Her hand moves from Hayate's newly denuded hip to the lightly furred patch above her mound. Now it is Hayate's turn to shake her head in polite refusal._

_"Vita, you don't want to be selfish do you?" she asks, spreading her legs. It takes Vita an eyeblink to leap around to the other side of the bed and go down on her master, repaying the tribute she's received in kind. Laughing faintly at her enthusiasm, Signum brings her breast up to Hayate's lips, a gift eagerly accepted as her lips rain kisses down upon the large mounds._

_As Hayate has her first orgasm from Vita's lips, she spasmodically slides her hand down Signum's belly, brushing through the perfectly trimmed purple pubic hair to the cleft below it. The message she sends is clear, and Signum, kissing her once more, pulls her body up so that Hayate can do unto her as she is being done unto by Vita. But at first she does not do, merely caressing Signum's entrance with soft puffs of her breath._

_Until at last, Signum says the words that Hayate needs to hear. "Please, don't tease me so," she murmurs." And Hayate smiles as she begins to kiss, lick and suckle. Because teasing is what she has to do, to bring release to this supremely self-controlled of her knights. Teasing is the only way that self-control will shatter, to let the passion she knows lies within explode forth._

_And besides, it's fun. So she teases the first of several orgasms out of Signum, and if during one of them she hears the knight hiss "Tst!", as though almost, but not quite, saying a certain name, she pays it no mind. A great heart, such as she possesses, has lots of room._

_Eventually, Signum falls backwards off Hayate's face, trembling with sensation, and Vita pulls herself up to kiss Hayate's juice-stained lips once more. And it is then that they see Shamal standing, naked as a jaybird, beside the bed, looking down at them with an uncertain expression._

_"I'm not sure that this isn't a very big mistake," she says sadly. But that uncertainty doesn't stop her from letting Hayate pull her down to lie beside her, nor does it stop her from kissing Hayate with full responsivity and passion. It is with Shamal that she learns to grind together, breasts and parts lower rubbing together so that pleasurable friction is created, something she didn't realize was possible._

_Of course, a healer would know more about how the body functions, but Shamal's expertise does not seem so clinical. They had been ill-used by many of their masters, her knights, but some, Vita had allowed, had been kind. Now she wonders if that might have been more than kindness ... but if so, it is surely none of her concern._

_Eventually, Shamal lies sated beside her, with Vita and Signum curled up beside her in different ways. And then she hears a throat being cleared above her. "I almost think I don't belong here," says Zafira, looking just a bit embarassed in his briefs._

_"You do," Hayate assures him, sitting up and sliding to sit on the edge of the bed. "You do," she repeats, reaching up to the briefs, pulling their elastic down to expose the hardened organ hidden beneath, and bending forward to -_

_His hands rest firmly on her shoulders, stopping her and making her look up. "You don't have to do that," he says._

_"But I can. And I want to. Do you want me to?" she asks._

_For a second, his only answer is his breath, and then he lets his hands fall, and she continues to lean forward to take him in her mouth. And this is what it has all been for, all the videos, all the manga, it has all been training for this moment. With her other knights, she can do what she knows would bring pleasure to herself, or answer their unfamiliar motions with ones of her own. But she has no idea what to do to bring pleasure to the alien body of a man, save intellectually. It will have to be enough._

_Eventually, his hardness is sufficiently wet enough. It was never a question of making it harder, only of making it more lubricated. She stops sucking, leans back and spreads her legs, and he falls forward and slides into her. She realizes that her head is lying in Shamal's lap, and the knight gently caresses her cheek and murmurs soothingly._

_Which is good, because despite the loss of her maidenhead before this, Zafira's thing is wider than any of the fingers that have entered her, and it penetrates further. It feels good, but there is pain involved, and the gentle fingers in her hair, and the lips of Signum and Vita on her breasts, distracts her long enough for the pain to ease, for the pleasure to grow._

_For her part, she reaches up to experiment, to see if it is as pleasurable for a man to receive kisses to his nipples as it is for a woman. The results are inconclusive; she thinks she sees Zafira smiling, but who can know why? Particularly as he reaches his climax and spills his seed within her. His pleasure gives rise to her own, and she climaxes as well._

_Moments later, she lies in bed surrounded by her family, enjoying how easy they have all become with each other. "So was that the birthday present you wanted, Hayate?" Vita asks, nuzzling her cheek._

_"Almost," she says wearily._

_"Oh, come now," Shamal objects. "What more could you want?"_

_"I haven't had the pleasure of one of my knights' company, yet," she replies, looking fondly at Zafira._

_"Eh?" asks Vita._

_Once again, Zafira grasps her meaning before the others do, and once again, he says, "Hayate, are you saying -"_

_"Yes," she answers, and rolls over onto her stomach. "I love all of you ... and I love all of all of you."_

_For a moment, she thinks that she has pushed too far, that he will refuse her this. And then, in the stillness that follows, she feels a long, long tongue licking at her, and smiles in bliss as she lifts her rear up to allow him better access. And then she feels fur brushing against her skin, and paws resting delicately on her shoulders, as she is penetrated yet again, and the long, wolfy tongue caresses her cheek._

_"Hayate," says Vita, spreading her legs before her as Zafira pounds away behind her, an invitation that she's only too happy to accept ..._

* * *

><p>"Hayate," said Vita once again, jolting Hayate out of her reminiscence. The smallest - or rather, second smallest, now that she had awakened Reinforce Zwei - of her knights was standing at the bathroom door, wrapped in a towel and looking at her a bit anxiously.<p>

"Ah!" she says. "I'm sorry, I must have dozed off."

Vita lets out a sigh of relief, then looks purposeful. "Hayate, can I come in there with you?" she asks.

"Only to bathe," Hayate reminds her warningly. "No fooling around in the furo." She'd established that rule early on. Lustful as she was, even Hayate needed occasional moments of rest. The bath provided her with a convenient excuse.

But Vita held up a hand and waved it. "I'm not, I don't," she said, sounding just a bit nervously. "I just want to be with you for a while."

Hayate blinked, but nodded, and carefully watched the little girl as she scrubbed herself clean. "Did you and Signum have another fight?" she asked abruptly.

Vita sighed. "I've told you, we don't fight," she said wearily. "Do you hear air raid bullhorns? You would if we fought. We had a ... difference of opinion, that's all," she concluded after dousing away the last of the suds.

Hayate waited until Vita was sitting beside her in the bath to wrap her arm around her shoulders. "And what was your difference of opinion about?" she asked softly.

"'s not important," Vita muttered, dropping her chin until her mouth was just above the water level.

Hayate coughed delicately, before giving Vita a 'remember who I am' look. She didn't like to assert her authority, but when it came to disputes between her beloveds, she couldn't afford to scruple. The structure of their lives together was too delicate for that.

"It was just ..." Vita trailed off, looking frustrated, then continued in an aggravated tone. "She was mooning about 'Testarossa' again, and I just got sick of it and told her to go confess already. It drives me crazy to watch her doing that! I mean, if you like someone, you tell them, right? But she acts all superior, saying she doesn't feel like interfering with Fate and Nanoha's thing, so she'd rather suffer in silence, and it pisses me off, and I tell her so. And then, then she says something so utterly stupid that - hrrrrgh!" Vita broke off with a growl.

"Mm-hm," Hayate said, having already guessed what the utterly stupid thing was. "Yes, I wish Signum would be a little more direct about how she feels. I think it would really make her happy."

"Exactly!" Vita agreed enthusiastically.

"But I can understand why she's not," Hayate continued. "I wonder if maybe she's worried that openly loving someone else will mean that she doesn't love me as much as she did?"

Vita snorted. "That's silly! Shamal and Zafira love you as much as they did, even though they're together, so why would she think something like that?"

"Yes, that's a good question," Hayate agreed, looking right at Vita.

Vita avoided returning the gaze. "I don't know what she thinks," she said. "Of course, I don't really understand why she'd want to love someone else at all. I only love you, Hayate. Only you."

"Mm-hm," said Hayate. It was a very useful non-comittal response. She'd grown adept at using them as she rapidly rose through the ranks. "And you're not bothered by the fact that I love other people as well as you."

"Course not!" Vita said, almost proudly. "You're Hayate! You have so much love to give, it's scary."

"Well, thank you, Vita, but I don't think I'm that special," she said demurely. "But you know, it's not true that you don't love anyone but me."

"Yes it is."

"No, it's not. You wouldn't be so upset with Signum for hurting like she does if you didn't love her. In a different way than you love me, of course."

"Well, okay, yes, that's true," Vita allowed.

"And you love Signum and Zafira, in a different way again. And Rein. And the old folks you help out. And Fate. And ... Nanoha," she said, getting a reluctant nod from Vita after each of those points ... except the last.

To that one, Vita sniffed, turned away and said, "I guess."

And Hayate smiled.

**NEXT: Vita.**


	3. Chapter 3

_Standard issue disclaimer: Masaki Tsuzuki created, and Seven Arcs owns, Nanoha. I am not any of them. This is a parody, protected speech._

_My apologies for the lengthy delay between chapters that have no real time between each other, but I've been busy. Things should pick up after this._

**Dangerous Tendencies **  
><strong>Chapter 3 - Vita<strong>

**0074 NC**

There are probably people in the multiverse who smile for no particular reason. Their happiness bubbles up out of their general contentment with life, and expresses itself automatically, not in response to any particular stimulus. But Vita was well aware that her Master, or Hayate as her Master preferred to be called, was not one of those remarkable people. When she smiled, it was always, always in response to something that someone else had done or said.

But Vita had no idea what she'd said that could possibly provoke such a smile. All she'd done was indicate that she agreed with what her Master was saying. Worse, this particular smile was one that she recognized from her Master's chess matches with Signum and Zafira. (Shamal didn't like the game. Vita just couldn't see the point.) It was her 'a-ha, you've fallen into my trap' smile. Where had the trap been? What had it been?

"I really wouldn't mind if you also loved someone else, you know," her Master was saying.

Why had she circled back to that? They'd established that she didn't mind it if her Knights found satisfaction in the arms of others, just as she herself did. But Vita didn't want to find that satisfaction with anyone other than her Master, and that was the way that it was always always going to be. So she replied with a cautious, "I know. But I don't love anyone else that way."

"Mmm," said her Master.

Did she think Vita was lying? Why would she think that? What had she done to make her Master think that? Because there wasn't anyone else. At all.

"Well," said the increasingly frazzled Knight of the Hammer. "This has been a very relaxing bath, Hayate, but I think I've had enough for now."

And she proceeded to do so, standing up and getting out of the furo.

"Mmm," said her Master. And then, quietly, "You're not in the furo, now."

Eh? What a strange thing to say! Of course she wasn't in the furo. What was the significance of -

_No fooling around in the furo._

_Oh no._

And then she was tackled.

It was easy for her Master to pin Vita for the bathroom floor, since the little knight literally couldn't put up any real resistance to her groping without doing her injury. So there she lay flat on her stomach with her Master crouching atop her back. She couldn't see her Master's face, but she suspected that was something of a relief, because she had a fairly good idea of what that face would look like.

Her worst suspicions were promptly confirmed when the horrible, horrible words were sung into her left ear. "Kitchy kitchy koo!" And then she felt the fingers dancing on her ribcage.

"No, haha, no, please, ha-ha-hayate, no, I don't like being tickled!" she cried out.

"Liar!" her Master snapped, though clearly only feigning anger. "Such a bad little girl you've turned out to be, telling lies like that. And you know what happens to bad little girls, don't you, Vita-chan?"

"No, I'm not -"

"They get spanked!" And she promptly suited the action to her words.

"Ah!" Vita cried out. She wasn't in pain, of course; it would take a much, much greater impact than that to cause her even a little bit of physical distress. But she could easily cover that by drawing on the emotional distress of knowing that her Master would be displeased with her if she didn't pretend to be surprised and shocked by the spanking. And of course, there was also the sensations that were dawning from the feeling of her Master's naked body rubbing against her own.

"Oh, naughty little bad girl!" her Master cried out as she spanked Vita again. "This is turning you on, naughty little hammer knight! My spanking is getting you wet!"

"No, no, that's - AH! - not true!" And it wasn't. It was the closeness of their bodies, the fact that she could feel her Master's racing pulse in her skin where they touched. These were the things that made her own blood race with arousal.

But none of that mattered in the slightest as her Master, still spanking her with her firm right hand, reached down between Vita's legs with her left and began caressing the folds of Vita's vagina. "Mm, yes it is true. All wet back here. Mmm, and it tastes good, too. I wish you could taste this, my darling girl, but you've been bad and so don't deserve it."

And then the two fingers of her hand penetrated into Vita's core, caressing the walls within, almost, but not quite, forgetting to keep up the spanking.

"Yes," Vita finally cried out. "Yes, I've been bad." If having been bad meant this could happen, then she was prepared to cop a plea though not guilty. Her Master's happiness was all the reward she could ever ask for; her Master's touch was her only pleasure. She would give her Master everything that she wanted.

"Mm, yes, you have, lying like that," her Master mused. "In fact ..."

The impossible happened. Her fingers pulled back, reaching up to thrill Vita just once with a brief tap on her clitoris, before completely disengaging from Vita's pubic area.

"... you've been so bad that I'm not sure I want to keep doing this," she continued, as though making an off-hand observation.

_What?_ thought Vita frantically. _This isn't part of the game!_ "But, but I don't know what you mean, Mas- Hayate?"

"You've been lying," her Master repeated. "I know when my kids lie, even when they tell themselves that they're telling the truth. I learned that I had to learn that when I found out what they'd been doing without telling me." Her voice was calm, but Vita found herself fighting panic.

"But, but you said you weren't angry -" she stammered.

"And I'm not angry, not then, and not now. I'm not angry, and I'm not going to get angry. But unless you tell me the truth, I don't think I can do this sort of thing with you."

"I'm not lying, though!" Vita cried, tears starting to flow from her eyes. "I don't love anyone but you, Hayate! Please, please don't stop."

"Viiii-taaa," her Master said, drawing out the two syllables. "This is hard on me, too, you know. I really, really want to do things to your sweet, sweet body, but I can't until you start telling the truth. It's such a little thing, Vita. Can't you do this one little thing for your Master?"

Oh, not fair! "But, but ...!" Vita tried to object, but she couldn't think of anything to say to that. And so she closed her eyes, squeezing out the tears, and whimpered.

"I didn't hear that," her Master teased.

"I ... love ..."

And as she said the name, her mind reeled back through the years in an attempt to understand how all this had come to pass.

* * *

><p><em>From the very first moment her eyes resolved the image of Takamachi Nanoha, Vita was prepared to despise her. Here was this silly girl, swanning about in her oh-so-pretty white dress, flying, walking, doing all the sorts of things that her Master could not do but would probably love to do, and certainly not appreciating them as much as her Master would ... it just ground her gears like nothing else.<em>

_And all this was before she went and knocked off Vita's Hat._

_For that alone, under any other circumstances, Vita would have killed her. But her Master would not want her happiness purchased at the cost of anyone's life, even someone as annoying as this girl turned out to be, so she had only tried to maim. But the girl proved to be even more annoying than she had expected, and on top of that, she'd had allies. Or friends, as someone put it._

_They'd clashed again, and the girl kept getting more and more annoying. Why did she keep trying to talk? Didn't she understand that this was a fight? Why was she trying to use reason when only force would settle the issue? Signum might find that Fate girl to be a worthy opponent, but Vita only felt scorn and contempt for her usual sparring partner._

_And then she took everything that Vita could throw at her and walked out of the flames unharmed, saying that she was going to make Vita talk._

_Vita started to feel something she hated - fear. And then her damned words started worming their way into the strange uncertainty that she'd already started to feel. They threw light on the realization that something was wrong, that they were doing the wrong thing, even though it was the only thing that they could do. She wasn't meant for such realizations! She was a blunt instrument!_

_The oblivion of her defeat had come as almost a relief after all of that, and then she'd been restored, brought to her Master's side once more as her Master shone in all her glory. There hadn't been time, then, to comment on the strangeness of fighting alongside someone she'd hated so much. Well, to be honest, it wasn't a terribly novel feeling. In the old days, when allegiances shifted with the wind, the Wolkenritter had often found themselves fighting alongside former enemies._

_It didn't make those old enemies friends. And so she determined to keep that in mind. Her Master didn't want her to fight Nanoha anymore, so she wouldn't. But she wouldn't ever be the girl's friend, the way that Signum and Fate were becoming friends. (How cloying!) They were allies. Not friends._

_And then that day in the snow ..._

_She'd called out a warning, as one does to an ally, and Nanoha had turned just quickly enough to see the silvery blade descending towards her chest, not nearly quick enough to block or dodge out of its way. She saw the girl fall out of the sky, and didn't even remember killing the thing that hurt her so badly. All she'd cared about at that moment was determining her ally's condition._

_Nanoha was still awake when she got to her, and she looked up with a confused smile and asked, red ruin flowing from her chest, "Hey, Vita, are you okay?" And then she passed out._

Am I okay?

No. No, I am not okay, _she thought._

This is what it was like when I thought Hayate was dying, _she thought_.

I feel like I did when I thought Hayate was dying, _she thought._

I feel about Nanoha dying the way that I feel about Hayate dying, _she thought._

I feel about Nanoha the way that I feel about Hayate, _she thought._

No. No I do **not**.

_And she called for a medic, and eventually they got back to Mid-Childa. Really, it was just as well that Fate wouldn't talk to her or even look at her, because she had no idea what she was supposed to say to the other girl. I'm sorry was not going to cut- was not going to be good enough._

_Somehow, as Nanoha recovered, Vita managed to regain her equilibrium. And never once in that time did she ever allow herself to question the ultimate realization she'd stumbled upon in those frightening seconds when she'd thought Nanoha was going to die._

_She did not love Nanoha._

_She did not._

_... and yet she knew that she did._

* * *

><p>"One more time?" Hayate whispered.<p>

"I love Nanoha," Vita said, her words almost broken by sobs.

"Good girl," Hayate said soothingly, and pulled herself up and off of Vita's prone form just long enough to roll her onto her back, provoking a gasp of surprise from those lips before she slammed back down onto her, grinding her hard with her leg held up so that her lips could lick at the toes she loved so much.

"Hayate!" Vita called out, again and again, as she was fucked firmly by her Master.

And finally, they lay together on the floor, passion spent. And now the truth needed to be addressed.

"It's okay, you know," Hayate told her gently.

"No, it's not," Vita moaned. "I'm so confused."

"Then it's okay to be confused. Vita ... if you have to do what your Master wants, then you should accept that your Master is happy that you love someone else as well as her," Hayate pointed out. "No, not just is happy. I love that you love Nanoha. When the people I love, love each other, I think that makes them all happy. And that makes me very happy."

"But I don't know what to do," Vita said. "I-I've never had to confess anything before now. And what if she's not interested in me that way?"

"I will help you," Hayate promised, reaching over to hug her gently. "And if she's not interested in you, then you will know that she doesn't deserve to be, because anyone who could refuse someone as sweet as you are doesn't serve someone as sweet as you are."

"I'm not that sweet," Vita grumbled.

"Yes, you are," Hayate said, squeezing. "Yes, you are."

_And Nanoha thinks so too_, she didn't tell her, since she was looking forward to Vita finding out for herself. She would go over there one night soon, with Vita and Signum, and the five of them would finally give way to their passions. If she played her cards right, she would finally see Vita and Signum making love like she'd always fantasized.

Even if that didn't work out, then if nothing else, Nanoha would have better options for when Fate wasn't around than some of the losers she'd been with lately.

**NEXT: Yuuno.**


	4. Chapter 4

_Standard issue disclaimer: Masaki Tsuzuki created, and Seven Arcs owns, Nanoha. I am not any of them. This is a parody, protected speech._

_"Things should pick up after this," he said. Orrrr not._

**Dangerous Tendencies **  
><strong>Chapter 3 - Yuuno<strong>

_0074 NC_

There are certain questions that, in the normal course of events, one asks and expects to receive a non-informative answer. They are a normal part of conversation, sort of a way of expressing empathy rather than a request for information. When one asks, "How've you been lately", one expects an answer along the lines of "things have been good" or "not too bad" or "can't complain".

One certainly didn't, if one were Yuuno Scrya, expect to see the person whom one had just asked that question open her mouth to express such a response, fail to say anything for a moment, and then close her mouth as her face crumbled into an expression of shame and grief. One especially didn't expect to see that happen to Nanoha Takamachi. She sat down the cup of tea she'd been holding as they sat in her condominium's sitting room, then lifted her hands to her face. "Oh, Yuuno-kun," she said mournfully. "It's all gone wrong!"

"Eh?" he said, since he had no idea what he should say at such a moment. "Nanoha!"

"And it's all my own fault, too," Nanoha continued, letting her hands down as she looked at them mournfully. "I've made a complete mess of my life, and I can't say that someone tricked me, or even that I didn't realize what I was getting into when I started this."

"What do you mean?" Yuuno asked, still feeling a terrible sense of unreality. The strongest person he'd ever met was falling to pieces in front of him.

"It starts with Fate-chan," she said wearily, then finally lifted her gaze to meet his, her soulful violet eyes gazing at him and expressing fatigue awful to contemplate. "You know, don't you, that we're ..." She trailed off.

"Living together?" he supplied delicately. He was well-aware of their much more intimate relationship than those words described. It didn't bother him; people who, like Yuuno, could change into animals generally regarded human sexuality and neurosis about it with amusement. But somehow, this just didn't seem like the time to crack jokes about it. Actually, the generality had never really applied to Nanoha.

"Yes," she said, sounding grateful for a moment, before the gloom settled on her face again. "Except that we're not, really. She's always off on missions, and I'm always in training ... we almost never see each other! And when we do, we're usually just tired. We don't, I mean ..." She trailed off again, blushing just a bit.

He'd always thought she was incredibly cute when she blushed. But this was not the time to be thinking such things, Yuuno sternly reminded himself. "I see," he said. He felt an impulse to offer advice, but his empathy told him that she wasn't done talking yet.

"And I think there's someone else," Nanoha said quietly.

"Eh?"

"I think Fate-chan may be seeing someone else," she repeated, tearing up. "I think she's cheating on me."

"No!" Yuuno gasped, then cursed himself silently. Yes, tell her that she shouldn't trust her feelings, that she's nuts, that was clever, "I mean, what makes you think that?" he said, trying to recover.

She shook her head. "It's nothing, it's just ... it's not that we're always tired, but she's never interested in, well, being with me. So there's got to be someone else, right? But I suppose that's my fault, too," she added after a moment, sounding gloomy.

"Why do you think that?" Yuuno found himself repeating. The sense of unreality he'd felt was back in force.

"I was the one who pushed for us to get closer," Nanoha admitted. "I mean, we were kids, really, and I thought we'd always be together, so we might as well be like that. But that's just childish dreaming, isn't it? I mean, my parents didn't meet until they were in their late teens. Kyouya-niisan didn't marry the girl he'd grown up with, he married the one he met when he was almost an adult.

"Looking back on it, I can see where things went wrong," she continued, leaning back against the couch, her eyes distant from their current place and time. "I got hurt. And she took care of me. If not for that, I think, I think we would have realized that we were better off as friends long before now," she sighed.

Yuuno swallowed. "Have you tried talking to Fate about this?" he asked hesitantly.

"There's never time," Nanoha replied, shaking her head. "And when we do talk, it's never about that. I don't know how to ask these things. And her? She has all these plans. She wants children, Yuuno-kun. She wants us to have children together." She turned to stare at him with an incredulous expression. "How can we take that kind of responsibility, when our jobs could get us killed at any time?"

"I don't know, Nanoha," he said after a long silence. It was a lousy answer. If she was telling him all this, asking all these questions, she must be in desperate need of his help. Yet all he could do was lend her a sympathetic ear.

"And on top of all that, it's been months since I saw my family," Nanoha continued. "I'd love to call my mom and talk to her about all of this, but she'd just be able to lend a sympathetic ear. You can't hug someone over the phone, and I could really use a hug right now."

_I'm such an idiot,_ Yuuno thought. He got up from the chair and quickly headed over to sit beside her on the couch, arms wide open.

For a moment, she stared at him, as though wondering whether she should. He beckoned, smiling gently, and she fell foward against his chest. "Thank you, Yuuno-kun," she said, rubbing her tears against his shirt. "You've always been so good to me, and I've never really appreciated it."

"That's not true," Yuuno said, feeling about ten feet tall right at the moment. "You were there for me as much as I was there for you, always."

"But I didn't accept your feelings," she protested, looking up at him wanly.

"I didn't make them clear," he answered, shaking his head. "I was too much of a child, and ..."

He trailed off, just looking down at her as she looked up at him.

And then, so quickly that he couldn't be sure which of them had made the move, the distance between their faces closed, and they were kissing, deeply. It was every bit as wonderful as he had ever dared to dream that it could be, and he thrilled to the sensation of her tongue entering his mouth, feeling her heart beat next to his. And then, to his stunned amazement, he felt one of her hands slide down from where it had been resting against his pectorals to his belt, and start undoing it.

"Bluh?" he said into the kiss which continued all the while this was happening.

His pants opened up, and the hand reached into his boxers.

"Wait," Yuuno said, somehow finding the strength to pull back from the kiss. "Wait, slow down, you don't have to -"

"But I want to, Yuuno-kun," she said, caressing his length as she took the opportunity to look down at it. "It's so pretty. So very pretty." She bent down then and, before he could fully process what was about to happen, took his manhood into her mouth.

Yuuno was not, it should be noted, a blushing virgin. The Liese twins had taken care of that almost as soon as they were left alone with him, years before, and there had been a few other partners since then. But this sensation, having this done to him by the girl he had quietly adored in silence for years, was nothing that he had ever imagined happening. It overpowered him, leaving helpless to do anything except lie there and drink it in, watching dazedly as she caressed him with her tongue, her teeth, her lips and one of her hands.

_Where's her other hand,_ he wondered vaguely, as he listened to the wet noises she made.

Just as he thought she was about to bring him off, Nanoha reared up, revealing that she had hiked up her skirt and slid her panties down around her ankles. (Ah, he thought fuzzily, that's where her other hand was.) Before he could voice a word, she slid forward and down onto him.

"We're one, Yuuno-kun," she said then, smiling all the while.

"Nguuuhhhh," Yuuno replied clverly.

She began to rock back and forth, riding him fiercely but gently. He somehow summoned the presence of mind to lift up his hands from where they'd helplessly lain at his sides, and slid them up under the hem of her t-shirt, not stopping until they'd lifted it up to reveal her small, firm breasts - or at least the sports bra that covered them. But that was enough, and he gloried in the contact with them even as she started to cry out as she brought herself to her first orgasm.

The sensation of it, the tightening and release of it, made him lose the focus he'd kept since she started, and he felt himself jetting into her as well, and gasped at how good it felt to do so.

For a second, they just lay there, panting from the exertion.

And then, in the distance, the door to Nanoha's apartment opened, and Fate's voice could be heard announcing her arrival and return home in traditional Japanese style. Owing to their position on the couch, Yuuno saw her first as she entered the living room from the apartment's foyer, and watched her cheerful expression turn ashen as she saw them.

"Yuuno? Nanoha?" she asked, horror clear in her tone.

"... this is not what it looks like!" Yuuno said.

Nanoha pulled back, directing an amazed expression at him. "... 'not what it looks like', Yuuno-kun?"

"I-I-I-I," he replied, rapidly swiveling his head between the two women.

"How could you do this?" Fate asked, eyes watering. "_How could you **do** this?_" she repeated, almost shrieking this time. To Yuuno's horror, her hand swept up and she cried those most horrible words, "Bardiche! Set up!"

"Yes, sir," replied the tiny triangle in her hand.

Nanoha reacted to this challenge by pulling away from Yuuno with a determined expression. "Raising Heart! Set Up!" she snapped that terrifying expression, her hand out as well.

"All right, my master," said the tiny gem.

"Noooooo!" Yuuno cried out as he dove for the floor, ducking and covering and throwing up the strongest barriers he possibly could to shield himself from the devastation that was sure to follow.

... where was the planet-shattering kaboom?

A few seconds later, Yuuno lifted his head to see what had transpired.

"Gotcha," said Fate and Nanoha in unison as they crouched in front of him, grinning matching evil smiles.

"Eh?" Yuuno asked.

"It's not fun being lied to by omission, is it?" Nanoha asked, beaming brightly.

"Eh?"

"Now, if I'd mentioned that Fate and I have an open relationship and can be with other people whenever we want, you probably wouldn't have been so scared, would you?" she continued.

"_Ehhhh?_ Buh, wha, you - you said -"

"And you said it wasn't what it looked like, so I don't really think you have any room to talk, Yuuno," Fate added.

This ... this was a nightmare. It had to be a ... no, it was too real to be a nightmare. "I have to use the bathroom," he gasped.

Nanoha looked down. "Too late," she said. "Gee, that's going to be hard to get out of the carpet ..."

* * *

><p>A few minutes later, Yuuno found himself sitting on the toilet with his hands over his face, breathing heavily. He still could not believe what had just happened to him, the trickery, the sex, any of it.<p>

"The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine," Fate said as she came in to the bathroom through a door that clearly didn't lock as he'd thought it did.

"I don't think this really qualifies as karma!" Yuuno protested. "Okay, I didn't tell her that I was actually a boy in ferret form, instead of an intelligent ferret, but -"

"And she didn't tell you that while we have been in the situation she described to you, we're not right now. And you're embarrassed, just like she was." Fate looked a bit sympathetic as she leaned against the sink while watching him. "And for what it's worth, I really was surprised to walk in on you like that. Nanoha's talked about tricking you like this before, but I didn't know she was actually going through with it tonight."

"And so you played along," he said wearily.

"Mm-hm. For good or ill, Nanoha really does believe that the burned hand teaches best. I don't agree, but ... well, we don't agree on a lot of things." Abruptly, she squatted down to meet his eye level. "She does care about you, Yuuno. That wasn't a lie."

"And you're really okay with this?" he asked.

"I don't own her, and she doesn't own me," Fate answered. "I'd rather she were with you than some of the idiots she has brought home from time to time, because I know you and like you."

"Like?"

"Like," Fate answered firmly. "Sorry, but you're not my type, Ferret-Changeling."

Yuuno sighed. "I'm not sure that I can deal with any of this," he said at length.

"You either can or you can't," Fate said, shrugging. "But this is the way that she is, and if you want to be a part of her life - like this - then you have to deal with all of this. Just like I do."

"I need some space to think about it, I think," Yuuno replied.

Fate nodded, and got up to head for the door.

"It's really all true? All the things she said ... like about -"

"Yes," replied Fate, not turning to look at him. "I want children, and she is ... well. She doesn't, and that's all there is to it. Like I said, I deal with it."

And then she went out, leaving him alone, with a great deal to think about.

**NEXT: Subaru.**


	5. Chapter 5

_Standard issue disclaimer: Masaki Tsuzuki created, and Seven Arcs owns, Nanoha. I am not any of them. This is a parody, protected speech._

_Two years later ..._  
><strong><br>Dangerous Tendencies **  
><strong>Chapter 4 — Subaru<strong>

_0074 NC_

_Deep breaths. Don't panic._ It was a simple, familiar routine. Tiana Lannister considered herself an expert at this, if nothing else. _Deep breaths. Don't panic._ Besides which, this was not such a big deal. There was no reason for her to get worked up. _Deep breaths. Don't panic._ It was just a procedure to relieve her of an unwanted physical condition. She shouldn't allow herself to become emotional about it. _Deep breaths. Don't panic._ So she'd simply lie here on her bed, in the dark and —

Then Subaru stepped out of the bathroom, backlit by the light from within so as to make her naked form seem to glisten as she smiled warmly. "Are you ready, Tia?" she asked softly.

_Deep —_ what was the word? Why couldn't she remember the word? It was really important that she remember the word! No, why was her brain throwing up images of how this had all started instead of doing something easy like reminding her of the word? Idiot brain!

Idiot Subaru!

* * *

><p>It was of course the idiot's fault. Tiana hadn't wanted to come along to meet with the idiot's sister, and once she had been roped into doing that, all that she'd wanted to do was exchange pleasantries and then go back to her highly cool and interesting private time in the room she was forced to share with the idiot. She certainly hadn't wanted to have a conversation with the older girl.<p>

It would have been so so easy to just sit there, say some comforting platitudes about how well the idiot was doing, and then make her apologies and exit. But for whatever reason, Ginga had wanted to have a conversation with her. She'd asked about Tiana's family, and expressed genuine sorrow when she learned about them, mentioning what Tiana already knew about the Nakajima mother.

And then she'd started to talk about why she'd been so nervous about the idiot when she went away to the academy, clarifying some things that Tiana had been wondering — had from time to time given vague consideration. Then Ginga had gotten a little distracted when Tiana mentioned that she practiced some illusion-based magic and the older girl had affected to think that this was supremely cool. (She was really good at faking sincerity.)

But she'd gotten back on track after that, and continued talking about her concerns. "But I was a bit concerned about her leaving home for the first time, being separated from us, and what that might do to her. The possibility that she might start acting out was a real worry."

"Act out?" Tiana said, since repeating the confusing part of what someone said to confuse you was the done thing.

"Oh, I wasn't afraid that she'd hurt anyone or anything like that, just that she might become a little, well, inappropriate from time to time, " Ginga clarified.

Ah. That. Yes. "Um, no, that's, that hasn't happened, " Tiana lied even as she wondered why she was bothering to lie. Unable to find a good reason for her to engage in such deception, she backed off of her earlier negation slightly. "She has been known to, she sometimes teases the other girls in the showers, but, well, I mean, she hasn't been reprimanded for it, so, I guess, no one is complaining, " she concluded, despising her own weakness.

Ginga promptly made matters worse by taking her absurdly awkward response entirely at face value. "Oh, good. I mean, if people were getting upset at her, that would be terrible. I guess she recognizes how to choose girls who won't mind that sort of thing. What a relief."

Tiana nodded, even as she inwardly shrieked at the implication that she, the most frequent subject of the idiot's attentions, was a girl who didn't mind that sort of thing. "It's good that she understands that, " she said to fill the space, and then, for no good reason, she chose to continue. "A little surprising, honestly, since you said that she hasn't been around many people other than you."

Ginga blinked.

And a second later than she should have, she said, "I guess so."

_Huh?_ thought Tiana, but before she could even process the strange new datum, the idiot came back with a ridiculous amount of ice cream and Ginga was enthusing to her about the cool magic that Tiana could do, and there was just no time.

Not then.

But there had been plenty of time since then.

Actually, it had only taken a few days for her to process it, come to a conclusion about it, and then decide to take action based on that conclusion. Really, it was almost bizarre the way that her thought processes were working at such speed when it came to this subject. It was as though this minor matter was somehow of utmost importance, which it certainly wasn't, not at all.

But regardless, she took action a few days later, while lying in bed and staring up at the bedboard above her own bed. "Hey," she said.

"Yes, Tia?" Subaru's voice came back politely.

"You and your sister are really close, aren't you?" she asked.

"Uh-huh," Subaru agreed enthusiastically.

Okay ... that response wasn't really what she'd been trying to achieve. Perhaps a different approach was necessary. "You ... and your sister ... are really close," she said.

"Uh-huh," Subaru agreed, enthusiasm undiminished.

No, that still wasn't it. She'd have to try again. "You and ... your sister ... are _really_ ... close," she said.

At last, that got a different reaction out of her roommate. Silence for a moment, then a short rustling, and then Subaru's head ducking down to peer at her from the top bunk with an expression that looked more bemused than anything else. "Tia, you've asked me that three times now. The answer is not going to suddenly become different, if you keep asking the same question."

"Why are you deaf to subtext?" Tiana asked, annoyed.

"Why are you asking me questions when you already know how I'm going to answer?" Subaru answered the question with a question.

Briefly, Tiana contemplated pointing out what bad form that was, but she was perfectly aware that would lead to a very involved conversation about the absurdity of certain social conventions, which would get more ridiculous and ridiculous until she finally had no choice but to smack Subaru upside the head while the other girl just stood there and took it. Which always felt like a loss for Tiana, even though she was the one smacking the other girl upside the head.

"Do you and your sister do stuff to each other like you do to the girls here?" she blurted out.

Subaru looked surprised. Well, she should. It wasn't Tiana's way to be so direct, so blunt. She felt embarassed and annoyed at herself for doing it now. But at least the question was out there, even though the answer was bound to be -

"No, we don't do stuff like that. We've gotten past that stage," Subaru answered easily, after the surprise passed.

- something somewhat different than Tiana had been expecting. "You and she ... have gone further than that with each other?" Tiana asked, feeling faint. _Well,_ she thought, _at least I'm sort of in the right place for it if further revelations should make me lose consciousness._

Subaru simply nodded in response.

"You simply nod in response," Tiana narrated.

"Would you like me to lie to you?" Subaru asked. Then, somewhat hesitantly, "Would you like details?"

"No," Tiana answered, forcefully. "And, hell no. But ... I mean ... how ... why ..."

"That's sort of a detail, you know."

"Yes, I _do_ know."

"Well, all right then. Um ... well, it started around the time our momma died. I was really sad and lonely, so I started sleeping in the same bed as Gin-nee, and, like I said, I was sad and lonely, so she comforted me, and one thing pretty much led to another. And that's what happened." Subaru nodded as punctuation.

"You are the worst storyteller I have ever met," Tiana said, rubbing her head to make the pain stop.

"Sorry," Subaru replied, looking abashed.

"Okay ... so you're in love with your sister, then," she continued after a moment, trying to adjust to it.

"Hrmmmmmm," the other girl hummed, as though testing the words for their taste. "I wouldn't ... I mean, I love Gin-nee. I love talking with her, sparring with her, doing this and that with her, all of it. But ... I know that she's not in love with me, and that keeps me from losing my head over her. She's after someone else, you see."

Tiana, who hadn't picked that up at all from the way Ginga had acted, blinked in confusion. "Who?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

Subaru shook her head with a pious expression on her face. "Nope," she answered. "Not my story to tell. Sorry! Anything else?"

"No," Tiana sighed. "That's enough revelation for one night, thank you very much. Good night, Subaru."

"Good night, Tia." And then her head was gone up out of sight.

But not out of mind, oh, no. Tiana couldn't possibly be that lucky. She couldn't stop thinking about it, really. Well, that was inaccurate. As long as she had something else to think about, as she did during all her training, her mind was blissfully undisturbed. But as soon as she had an idle moment - Anarch's favored ground being such moments - her thoughts drifted to the subject she'd told herself that she didn't want to think about.

_Do you want details?_ the idiot had asked, and she'd told her no, because that was The Truth. As opposed to the truth, which was that she couldn't stop thinking about just those details.

What was it like? What did they do to one another?

The course of her thoughts first led her to envision the pair of them with their heads between each other's legs, but she promptly rejected that notion. Pee came from there, along with ... other things, and they wouldn't want to taste that. She didn't even understand why she'd thought along those lines in the first place. It made no sense.

Then, she envisioned them lying entwined face to face ... heart to heart. Yes, that made more sense. They could kiss each other's lips like that, and though Tiana knew very little about such things, she knew that kisses on the lips felt good. But who would be on top?

Oh. Of course. It would definitely be Ginga on top. Yes, she would be the one directing matters, the one kissing while Subaru would be the one being kissed, lying back and having things done to her. Yes, and then, once she'd had her fill of kissing those lips, she could move her head back and down and kiss her breasts, those unusually large breasts and their tart little nipples, which would probably excite Subaru quite a bit. Yes, and all the while, her hands would be busy, stroking her sides, and her chest, and down between her legs, just like -

And then it occurred to Tiana, as she thought about all this while enjoying a rare moment of privacy in their room, that her hands were between her own legs.

She carefully considered that fact.

It seemed important.

And then she decided to ignore what her hands were doing, and focus on her thoughts, as she envisioned being strong enough, as Ginga must be, to place the unfathomable idiotic strength of Subaru under her restraint, to hold her down as she did things to her, to have might greater than the mightiest being she had ever encountered, to

Not

Be

So

Fucking

Weak!

And then she exploded.

That was what it felt like, and when she eventually came to her senses, and her hand came up to reflexively check her head for injuries, and she smelled what was on it, she grimaced in disgust.

She had to stop thinking about this.

But how?

The solution was embarrassingly obvious, as well as embarrassing in general. Of course it was. Since this whole thing was the idiot's fault, Tiana was going to have to get the idiot to fix it. And the only way that was going to happen was if she did something embarrassing. Well, she could do that. She could do anything if it meant that she'd be free of this.

It took her a week to find the right time. Picking the right time was important. She was certainly not too embarrassed to take action, or working up the nerve to do so. Nope. Not her. No way.

She chose the moment perfectly. "Subaru," she said.

"Yes, Tia?" her roommate said, not looking up from the magazine article about a certain ace of aces she was reading while lying flat on her stomach on the floor of their room.

"We're going to have sex."

It was honestly a little disgusting, Subaru's obsession with Takamachi, the way that she was staring at the photos of her at such a point blank range, as though she had just collapsed face-first into the magazine. Which was clearly not what had happened. Nope. No way.

Eventually, the fixation passed, and Subaru lifted her head to look at Tiana with a shocked expression. "We're what now?"

"We're going to have sex," Tiana repeated herself, hating the fact that it was necessary. Why couldn't the idiot just understand her at once? "Lately I've become concerned about certain things that have been going on in this place, and this is the best way to deal with them. When you were living with your sister, how often did you two have sex?"

"Um, well, whenever we wanted," Subaru answered. "But -"

"So you were doing it all the time, then."

"... I wouldn't say th-"

"All the time, then," Tiana repeated herself _again_. So annoying! "But then you came here, and though you have heretofore controlled your impulses towards such behavior by sublimating them through your generally flirtatious behavior with me and others here, eventually they will express themselves in a way that could be potentially embarrassing or even dangerous. So as to prevent such a tragedy, you and I will satisfy your lusts by having sex with each other."

Subaru blinked audibly. "Tia," she said slowly. "I'm not really sure what some of those words mean. But I understand what you're saying ... and I think I have better control of myself than that."

"No you don't," Tiana disagreed.

"No, I really do think that."

Tiana started counting to ten silently. Before she reached three, she decided to the Outer Darkness with it and started talking again. "You might very well think that," she said, slowly. "But you are wrong to do so, because you don't have better control of yourself than that, or need I mention how you nearly threw me into orbit the first time we did an obstacle course?"

"You, uh, well, you just did," said Subaru, looking embarrassed and poking her fingers together in front of her face. "And, well, yes, I do sometimes have problems like that, so I guess Tia is right. So ... when are we going to do this?"

"As soon as possible," said Tiana.

* * *

><p>That turned out to be a few days later. And now, here she was, watching Subaru come closer and closer, and she was wondering why she'd ever thought this was a good idea.<p>

_Well, this is where my plans have brought me,_ Tiana thought grimly as Subaru climbed into the bunk beside her, making for a rather tight squeeze as their naked bodies pressed up against each other. _I have to follow them through to the bitter end._ With that thought, and a sharp nod to herself, she rolled so that she was perched atop Subaru's form, and kissed her soundly.

Hm. This was strange. Subaru didn't seem to be kissing her back. Well, obviously, she was kissing her back, but her tongue wasn't involved, as Tiana's was, in exploring her partner's mouth. What was the problem, here? Did Subaru not think it was worth exploring Tiana's mouth? Was that it? Did she think her mouth was boring and uninteresting?

Tiana pulled back and took a breath to begin remonstrating with Subaru over that.

"Tia," Subaru said, sounding spooked, before Tiana could say a word. "Where did you learn to do that thing with your tongue?"

"What, is my tongue not up to your standards?" Tiana asked, changing a noun in what she'd planned to say.

"That's, that's not what I was saying," Subaru pointed out. "Where'd you learn to do that stuff?"

Tiana continued to bridle. "Do I ask you questions about your past romantic history?"

"Yes, you did," Subaru pointed out.

_Crap,_ thought Tiana, as she remembered that doing that was, from a certain perspective, exactly what had gotten her into this situation in the first place. "Well, you have no room to judge, because I, I practiced kissing with my brother, just like you and your -"

"Tia," Subaru said, starting to look appalled. "Didn't you tell me that your brother died when you were eight?"

"So what?" someone asked. Tiana wondered who'd said that. It couldn't be her. Her voice was never that high-pitched and tearful sounding.

And then Subaru was hugging her tightly, holding her firmly, in a way that she couldn't fight against, just like no no don't think about that, not ever, holding her, holding her and talking into her ear.

"We are not going to have sex," Subaru said.

"No," Tiana said. It occurred to her abruptly that this could sound like an agreement when it wasn't supposed to be. "Your self-control -"

"I have enough self-control to hold you like this without crushing you," said Subaru, calmly, firmly, implacably. "I have enough to stop myself in other ways. I believe that. If I'm wrong ... then I'm wrong. But we are not going to have sex. Not now.

"One day. One day when you are ready, we are going to make love, and it is going to be the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to either of us. But not today. Not now. Not when you don't really want to do it."

Oh. Well. In that case ... Tiana let herself go limp. But Subaru's grip didn't falter even so.

This mighty being was most definitely not responding to her will, Tiana decided. Of course she wasn't. She was weak, and she was always going to be weak. Subaru's talk about 'one day' was just empty talk. It was never going to happen.

Never.

Nope. No way.

But ... it was a nice dream to think about as she slowly passed into unconsciousness, cradled in the other girl's arms. Even if it would never be anything more than that.

**Next: Signum**


	6. Chapter 6

_Standard issue disclaimer: Masaki Tsuzuki created, and Seven Arcs owns, Nanoha. I am not any of them. This is a parody, protected speech._

**Dangerous Tendencies  
>Chapter 6 - Chrono<strong>

0074 NC

Had he his druthers - and knew what druthers were, exactly, though he thought he understood the concept, at least - this particular glorious tradition of the Navy would be abolished immediately. In an era where there were such things as teleportative transport, the notion that the commanding officer of a ship had to either walk off the vessel (or where necessary, be carried off of it) when it was docked was grossly inefficient and bordered on absurdity.

Chrono suspected that such opinions, if openly voiced, would probably do great harm to his reputation among his fellow Admirals. Of course, had he _truly_ had his druthers, he would still be in the Enforcement division rather than Command and not give a damn what any of the Admirals thought with the exception of his mother of course. That last clause was added to his thought almost automatically, and Chrono found his lips curving in a sardonic smile at how thoroughly she continued to influence him.

He hoped someday he would make a choice that wasn't influenced by the thought of what his mother would do in a given situation, whether in reaction against her imagined choice or in accordance with it. He suspected that hope was as phantasmal as El Hazard.

How long _was_ this companionway, anyway? It felt like he'd been walking for hours, through miles and miles of poorly carpeted tunnels and past deadlight after deadlight that showed nothing but stars. Impulsively, he kicked the bulkhead - since this was part of the station, not part of his _Asura_, and so did not deserve his tenderness - and then kept walking. Ah, there was the exit, now, Apologies, bulkhead, it wasn't your fault.

_I'm an animist, of all things,_ he thought wearily, with a shake of his head.

And then he was through the last sliding doors, and everything that might have been going on in the terminal faded into irrelevance as he saw her, standing just outside the gate, waiting patiently. His knees almost buckled, but he managed to keep walking, at the same measured pace that he'd used all the way through the damned companionway, towards her, then almost collapsed on her.

"Welcome home," she said to him.

"Amy," he murmured as he clung to her like a drowning man might cling to a scrap of wood tossed in the waves. "Amy."

"... Chrono, between yourself and that dufflebag over your shoulder, you're very heavy, and I don't have strength augmentation on right now," his wife told him after a moment.

"Right, right," he said wearily as he stood up. "Sorry."

"That's all right."

He looked about in mild confusion. "Where are the kids?" Then, in a concerned tone which was not at all on the verge of panic, "Has something happened to the -"

"No, but it's two in the morning, and they need their sleep," Amy told him quickly.

"Two in the - damned ships clock," he ground out between gritted teeth.

"I know, I know. And let me guess, you're not even sure what day it is, either?" she asked, as, sidling under his shoulder to support him as best as she could as they began to make their way to the terminal exit.

"Ah ... yes, yes I am sure. It's ... no I'm not," he admitted.

She told him the date.

"I know that date for some reason," Chrono mused as they exited the terminal. "It's very familiar. What was it that happened today?"

"It's your birthday."

"No, that's - it is, isn't it?" He groaned as he caught sight of the family car. "You've got a surprise birthday planned, haven't you?"

"The legendary deductive genius of the Enforcement Division strikes again."

"No, Amy, I _can't_ -"

"It's not for another sixteen hours," she told him. "The kids are staying at my parents' place for the night, you can sleep all you like at home and we'll go pick them up before we head over. But you are going to pretend to be surprised, all right?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said weakly as he slumped into the passenger side seat, through the door which had opened up as they approached.

Amy buckled him up, and waited until she was out of his line of sight to start smiling.

The operation had begun successfully.

Chrono was fairly sure that he must have napped on the night drive from the port to their house. His eyes closed, and when they opened again, the car was pulling into the driveway. He didn't feel even the slightest bit rested, though, even as he managed to get out of the car by himself, without Amy's help, and into the house, without collapsing - at least until he finally caught sight of what could laughingly be called their marriage bed, usually occupied only by her these days. _Then_ he collapsed onto it, sitting down and dully watching as she took off his shoes with practiced movements.

"This is really wrong," he muttered.

"I don't mind," she told him without looking up as she peeled down his socks as well.

"You should mind," he said, more unhappily than angrily.

As far as he was concerned, the second dumbest thing he'd ever done had been resisting the impulse to pull strings enough to get himself a port admiral's assignment here on Mid-Childa, once Amy had given birth and gone into semi-retirement. (It still paled in comparison to the massive idiocy of transferring to Command in the first place.) As things stood, he hardly ever saw his wife and kids more than a few days out of the year - video calls excluded - and when he finally got in he was usually wrecked, like he was right now.

"Up," Amy said, and with difficulty, he arose to a semblance of a standing position. "Well, even if I should mind, I don't mind. The deal was for better or worse, remember?" she reminded him as she got his pants down around his ankles.

Determined to contribute _something_ to the effort, Chrono pulled off his uniform jacket before the weariness led him to fall back onto the bed. "Sixteen hours?" he asked hopefully as he started to crawl towards the dimly glimpsed pillows before him.

"Sixteen hours until we're supposed to pick up the kids, but you might want to eat sometime in there," she confirmed.

He grunted something he hoped she took for him acquiescing, for almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, he could feel consciousness fading. The last things he heard were the ruffle of Amy undressing, and the last thing he felt was her body pressing up against him, and the flutter of her lips against his cheek.

* * *

><p>A dreamless interval later, he was roused. Blinking, he checked the desktop clock, which obnoxiously informed him that it wasn't yet seven in the morning. Four and a half hours was a pretty typical snooze for him when the <em>Asura<em> was on alert status, but he'd been hoping for -

Why was he awake?

_Oh,_ he realized, as the sensation at the level of his crotch, and the large bulge beneath the blanket covering him, registered in his awareness. The warmth and wetness _would_ certainly have drawn him from his slumber.

He sighed. "Amy," Chrono said. "I know you've probably been missing me, but really, a little more sleep would have been -"

"Happy birthday to you," Amy sang from the doorway to the bedroom, where she was leaning against the doorway while dressed in a jet black teddy and stockings.

Chrono blinked. Something was wrong about that picture.

"Happy birthday to you," another voice sang from just outside the doorway, and then, moving slowly in a pace that was almost a dance, the singer - _Nanoha_ of all people - came into view, wearing a white variation on the underwear Amy was wearing.

"Wha -" he gasped.

"Happy birthday, Chrono Harlaown," sang yet a third voice. _Hayate_, in a red variation on the same underwear as her two friends, practically hopped into sight.

And then the blanket covering him slid away, and he stared in mute amazement at the mane of golden hair draped over his lower body, as Fate looked up at him while slowly licking down the side of his erection, before singing, "Happy birthday to you!"

"And many more," the four women chorused, smiling broadly.

"Surprise, big brother," Fate said, before she took him back into her mouth.

Chrono stared down at Fate as she proceeded to give him a first class blowjob, then - with effort - lifted his head to look at the other three as they started to draw close to the bed. "What -" he stammered. "What - Nanoha, what in the worlds?"

Nanoha gave Amy and Hayate a sweet smile that might have seemed just a little bit smug. "I _told_ you he was going to ask me first," she said, before kneeling on the bed and running one of her hands through Fate's long hair. "Well, you see, Chrono-kun, a few weeks ago the three of us were having lunch with Amy-chan, and got to talking about you and how she thought you weren't very happy with the way your life was going."

"This was before the conversation turned to screaming orgasms, of course," Hayate interjected while she went down to join Fate in the licking of Chrono's phallus.

Fate let the phallus pop out of her mouth long enough to say, "Don't mislead him, Hayate - she's talking about the drink, not the - oh, that was _sneaky_," she accused as Hayate promptly took it into her own mouth.

Hayate fluttered her eyelashes at her in a way that clearly indicated acceptance of that compliment.

"And since when people we care about are sad, we can't be happy, either, we decided to do something to show you our appreciation for all that you do and are for us," Nanoha continued, leaning over so that her breasts spilled out of the teddy and over Chrono's mouth. "And here we are, giving a nice birthday present to our favorite Admiral."

"Second favorite in my case," Fate interjected, pausing from the effort of undoing Hayate's bustier so that she could freely handle her friend's breasts.

"Our favorite Admiral who holds our Limiters, let's say," Nanoha amended, trying to push her breasts into Chrono's mouth, which wasn't cooperating.

"This is, this is so against regs," Chrono protested.

"Oh?" asked Amy, as she also exposed her breasts over Chrono's mouth. "Were you planning on filing a complaint?"

"Well, no, but -"

"Well, then, I think this is nice and ready," said Hayate, pulling back from the reddened organ, rubbing it firmly with her hand while she looked at her companions. "Who wants the first ride?"

"I think his poor wife should get it first, don't you?" Nanoha mused aloud.

"Ah! Thank you, Nanoha-chan, but I don't want to be selfish like that," Amy said winsomely, running a finger through the hair gathered back in the other girl's ponytail. "It should be you, or maybe Fate-chan -"

"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly," Fate replied quickly. "I mean, I know just how good my big brother is, so I should reserve my turn for -"

"Okay, fuck this noise," Hayate said abruptly, and just as abruptly, she threw her hip over Chrono's hip and slid his dick up into her vulva. "We'll be showing off our unselfishness for _hours_ if this keeps up," she added as she started to rock back and forth. "Mm, yeah, he _is_ good, Fate-chan!"

"You are _so_ sneaky!" Fate complained as she reared up to grab ahold of Hayate and begin pressing passionate kisses to her mouth as they pressed together, breasts rubbing against each other.

"But really, this is more than -"

"I can think of a much better use for your tongue, Chrono-kun," Nanoha mused as she slid off her panties and knelt with one knee on either side of his head.

"... ah well," he said at last.

And so it went from there, with Chrono having what could only be called wild monkey sex with three of the most beautiful and powerful women he knew - plus his wife, who was of course more beautiful than any of them and not intimidated by the vast difference in power, either. (But then, since Amy had never seemed intimidated by the vast difference in power between her and his mother, he'd come to the opinion that she basically one of those who Knew No Fear, as the old songs said.)

The most surprising thing about it was how experienced and able Fate had become, a far cry from the hesitant, shy girl who'd asked him to be her first male sex partner and only demonstrated the strong will he knew she possessed when she refused his advice to seek out professional help. After their brief encounter, years earlier, he'd thought she would probably confine herself to her own gender. Clearly that hadn't been the case, and if it wasn't for the simple wrongness of the situation, he'd have been very happy that she'd grown more confident in her abilities.

But that led to the other surprising aspect of it all, for what he'd assumed was happening constantly didn't seem to be happening at all. As he received the carnal attentions of the four women, they were also sharing kisses, caresses, and the occasional fingerfucking with each other ... and yet, aside from the way that Nanoha had brushed her hand down Fate's hair at the start of it all, there was almost no contact between these two 'best friends'. Had something happened? It was neither the time nor the place to ask, but he found himself worrying about the two of them almost as much as -

Heh. As much as they must have been worrying about him, to set this up.

"They're fine," Hayate whispered into his ear at one point, as he was slamming away at Nanoha in the rear-entry position while she licked at Amy's cunny while Fate rode Amy's face.

Another surprise; he hadn't realized his concerns were so obvious.

"Yeah, Fate's just giving Nanoha a penalty for surprising her a few days ago. Ordinarily, they'd be all over each other. Well, unless there was a sneaky person involved who could manipulate the two of them into being all over herself, hee hee." He'd never met anyone who could work a deliberately sinister laugh into conversation the way Hayate could.

"But they're fine. And I really hope you're going to be fine, after this." From sneaky to comforting in one breath. She was dizzying in her complexity. "Now you should really finish up here, so -"

She stuck her thumb up his ass with little more warning than that, and he exploded into Nanoha's womb. He hoped she was keeping up with her birth control, as the notion of taking responsibility for a child with the Ace of Aces daunted him.

And so it went from there, with him having what could only be called wild monkey sex ...

... and, Saint help him, loving it.

Eventually, though, even wild monkey sex came to an end. Chrono, having just deposited a final squirt - more of a drip, really - of seed into Amy's cleft as they rutted together at the foot of the bed, nearly collapsed on top of her, breathing heavily as he gazed up at the other three, who were fast asleep at the bed's head. The three of them lay together, smiling happily in their doze, Fate and Nanoha and Hayate - in that order, Fate's fingers delicately entwined with Nanoha's as their foreheads touched as well. It was sort of heartening, really. They almost looked innocent.

Amy giggled as she looked up at him. "Were you just thinking they looked innocent?" she asked, smiling at him.

"That, and the fact that if I have another birthday like this, it will probably be my last," he told her, wearily. "Also that I need to work on keeping my thoughts off my face."

"They only show to people who know and love you," she reassured him. "If you had a bosom enemy, you might have cause for concern, but you're okay."

"Are we okay?" he asked.

"We are very okay."

They lay there in silence, listening to the three aces breathing.

"They wanted to show their appreciation for me, and I get that, I suppose, but I'm honestly not sure why they -" Chrono started to say.

"Chrono, suppose you did pull those strings to get a port admiral's post like you said the last time we talked," Amy said, speaking seriously. "Do you really think that the higher-ups would let you hold on to their limiters? No. Of course not. You'd have to give them up, and control would be reassigned to someone else, someone that those three _don't_ know and trust completely. It's a frightening thought, you know?"

"I suppose so," he said. "But Amy ... I know that they'd be unhappy, but I could endure their unhappiness if it meant _you_ were happy."

She looked up at him in silence. "Yes," she said. "I would be happier if you were closer more often. But I joined the TSAB because I thought the happiness of other people was more important than my own. That hasn't changed, even if I'm benched ... and these are our friends, Chrono."

He sighed. "You're right."

"Of course I am. That's why you married me. Because I told you that you should, and I'm always right."

"Didn't really have a lot of choice in the matter," he agreed.

Now she sighed. "When you say things like that, sometimes, I feel like I'm just like your mother."

"... does that frighten you?" he asked after a moment. "The prospect of becoming like her, of history repeating itself, of us -"

"If you ever so much as look at either of our kids, I'll kill you," she told him in a calm tone. "And I know that I won't ever do to them what she did to you, so no, I don't worry about it." She was silent. "I love your mother, but she was not right."

"Yes," he said, remembering how surprised she'd been by his tears, how she'd stammered apologies, how it had only ever happened once and he shouldn't hate her for it ... and he didn't. But it had changed things.

"I'm glad you didn't invite her," Chrono said.

"I'm glad she turned me down when I did," Amy confessed. "Just as well, though. Only four verses in that song, if you don't count that last chorus ..."

**NEXT: Signum (and we mean it this time.)**


End file.
